


A space to live in

by Mosca



Category: Gattaca (1997)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 17:29:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vincent, getting his legs stretched, is not used to being cared for; Jerome is not used to caring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A space to live in

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isilweth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isilweth/gifts).



Vincent was complaining about the pain in his legs again. It was all he did all day: lie around reading books about astrophysics and complaining about how painful the stretching braces were. Jerome never would have signed up for this if he'd known he would be living with the twenty-four-hour whinge machine. Didn't he realize that Jerome would have killed for pain in his legs? Would have killed to feel anything. "How about you have a Percocet martini and shut the hell up?" Jerome said.

"Yeah, drugs and alcohol, that's the way to go," Vincent muttered into his book.

"If there's a cure for pain, why not take it?" Jerome wheeled over to the wet bar and took out two glasses. "Besides, most of the great artistic accomplishments of humanity are owed to drugs and alcohol. And madness."

Vincent sighed; Jerome's musings on the human condition had once again failed to merit a response. Ironic, that the Invalid felt himself so intellectually and morally superior. Jerome looked over his shoulder to ask, "Shall I crush the Percocet in, or will you take it separately?"

"Why don't you drink them both?"

Jerome filled a glass with vodka, took a stiff, smooth gulp, and refilled to replace what he'd drunk. He diluted Vincent's gin with tonic and ice, then made sure Vincent wasn't looking before crumbling a dose of painkiller into the cocktail. "You'd best be nice to me," he said, laying a tray across his lap and setting the drinks on it. "Seeing as you're wholly dependent on my generosity."

"Only 'til I get the job at Gattaca. Then you'll be dependent on mine."

"Either way," Jerome said, "I'm the closest to a wife you're going to have. I'm your mail order bride. Accept what you've paid for." He drank deep. The alcohol numbed his brain and slackened his upper body, brought the parts of him that still worked properly closer to the parts of him that hung useless and insensate. "Or do you really think there's room for a woman in this relationship?"

"You find room." Vincent ignored the drink that Jerome had set down in front of him.

"I pay them to leave." He finished off his vodka. He wanted more, but the bar was a long way away by wheelchair. "You, on the other hand, have paid me to stay." He brushed Vincent's face cruelly with the back of his hand, tilting his glasses askew. "It might not be so bad, you know."

"That's repugnant. You're repugnant."

"If that's how you feel." Jerome wheeled away to pour himself another drink. "You haven't had much, have you? Sex. I bet you're a virgin."

Vincent spat out the drink he'd apparently started on as soon as Jerome had turned his back. Jerome hoped it left a stain on his astrophysics book. "I've had sex."

"What, two or three times?" Vincent's indignant silence implied that Jerome had gotten the number more or less right. Jerome continued, "Then I guess you wouldn't miss it so much. Wouldn't go to such lengths to get it. Not when you've got your right hand to keep you warm." He sneered down at Vincent, who was stirring the ice in his drink with his left index finger. "I'm sorry. _Left_ hand."

"You slipped something into this, didn't you?" Vincent said, making a big deal out of changing the subject.

"I'm glad your legs feel better," Jerome said. "I wouldn't object to being thanked." When Vincent responded by pretending to read his book, Jerome took it as permission to continue. "You're like an abused dog. You snap at everyone. I'd say it was as if nobody's ever been kind to you in your life, but I'm starting to think nobody _has._ I would like to ease your pain, and I am willing to give you pleasure. But I'm tired of having my hand bitten." He wheeled away in a huff, not sure of his destination.

"Your so-called kindness comes with a lot of strings attached."

"Everyone's selfish," Jerome said into his glass, which was by now empty again. "Even in generosity. Doesn't mean you shouldn't take what's offered to you." He headed off to his bedroom to masturbate as noisily and vengefully as possible.

Moments after he slammed the door, he heard the clatter of Vincent getting up and hobbling across the house on his crutches. He hoisted himself out of his chair and onto the bed. Vincent knocked, but Jerome ignored it, inching himself backward to prop his upper body against the headboard. Vincent shouted through the door, "Thanks for the drink." Jerome pulled his knees to his chest, took off his shoes and socks, and pushed his legs back out in front of him, spread slightly apart. Vincent shouted, "I'm sorry. I'm _sorry._ Let me in."

Jerome carefully calculated his silence: long enough to leave Vincent hanging, but not enough that he'd give up. "It's unlocked."

The door inched open, then stopped. "Are you wearing pants?"

"Come over here and find out."

Astonishingly, Vincent heeded him, struggling forward on his crutches. He'd had them for two weeks already but hadn't gotten used to them. He didn't really need to. He'd finish his artificially induced growth spurt and be ambulatory again. There was no point to building up his arm strength or learning to take corners. Vincent leaned his crutches against the wall and scrambled up onto Jerome's bed. He crawled gracelessly on his elbows into Jerome's lap. It was unceasingly odd, even all this time after his fall, to know he was being touched but not feel it. "Don't sit there," Jerome said. "I can't tell if your weight is crushing me."

Vincent swung his legs off. It took him some time to shift his weight and regain his balance; Jerome didn't offer to help. In fact, he turned his face away, so when Vincent kissed him, it nearly stopped his heart.

Vincent was a sloppy, awkward kisser. Jerome grabbed his face with both hands and showed him how it was done. Vincent was, in all things, a fast learner. He grasped the back of Jerome's neck and stroked Jerome's jaw with his thumb as if trying to drink him. He tasted bitter with alcohol and pills, sweet with desire.

"I need you to lie on your back for me," Jerome said. Vincent didn't move. "It'd be easiest if you could stand or kneel, but you can't put that kind of weight on your legs. So come on. Lie flat." Jerome clutched Vincent's impassive chin in his hand. "Or aren't we doing this?"

The following sequence of events was not sexy, Jerome having to dive forward and crawl up between Vincent's legs, the two of them fighting together to get Vincent's pants off over his braces. Before his fall, Jerome had craved every new position and location, had treated seduction like a dance. Now, he had to settle for what little was physically possible.

As Vincent had remarked once when he was tired of Jerome's sarcasm, his injury had done no damage to his tongue. Vincent didn't have much of an erection at first, but Jerome remedied that swiftly, working him up with hard, flat strokes around his shaft and then taking Vincent deep into his rounded mouth, holding Vincent still while he bobbed rhythmically over and around his cock. Vincent moaned as if trying to rattle the walls. Had he never been fellated before? Surely not by someone whose sexual assets were located almost exclusively above his waist.

Jerome allowed Vincent a few moments of post-orgasmic Elysium before admitting, "I need some help sitting back up." Vincent's assistance was usually grudging, something he had not intended to pay for when he'd bought into this arrangement. But there was a tenderness in Vincent's hands as he pushed and tugged Jerome's dead weight, caresses lingering as he touched anywhere Jerome could feel, a wet and deep kiss as he eased Jerome's back against the headboard. Now that Vincent knew his kindness would be repaid, he gave with his hands open.

Smoothly, as if it were part of their routine, Vincent unbuttoned Jerome's waistcoat and shirt. He set about kissing Jerome's neck and chest, his touch too cautious and ticklish. "Don't be afraid of hurting me," Jerome said. "I'm the opposite of fragile." But the instruction seemed to confuse Vincent more, and he stopped altogether. Jerome rolled his eyes. "I don't know. Use your teeth or something."

"Well, I don't know either," Vincent said. "I don't know how to – I assume you can still, but –"

"Yes, my cock still works like anyone else's. I wouldn't be hiring all those escorts if it didn't." He sighed, realizing that what he felt was grief. His accident had spared his sexual function, but he often withered from the discomfort of finding a position and the humiliation of sitting still while someone else ministered to him. He could still get off, but he'd never _fuck_ anyone again. "It can be slow going sometimes, though."

They proceeded by trial and error, Vincent adopting a scientist's thoroughness, Jerome providing a running commentary. There was laughter and cursing, as well as the occasional cry of pain when Vincent forgot himself and leaned back too much onto his shins. Vincent discovered a few reliable moves: sucking hard on Jerome's nipples, tracing his tongue over a soft spot at Jerome's throat. Jerome had forgotten how much he could still feel when someone took the time to touch him.

He was hard, which made him impatient. Vincent was happily providing endless foreplay. Jerome contemplated less compassionate ways of diverting Vincent's attention, but he chose the eloquent subtlety of unzipping his pants and waiting. Vincent received the message, and after some mishap and guidance, he was not terrible at giving head. He sucked hard enough to draw sensation out of Jerome's cock, and he did not seem to tire. Jerome kept his eyes open, admiring the asymmetry of Vincent's face. In imperfection, there was much delight. And finally, a moment of unfettered ecstasy.

Drowsy with dissipating pleasure, Jerome closed his eyes. Vincent pulled the covers over the two of them, leg braces clattering as he curled into place. Jerome wondered if their feet were touching, if Vincent's were cold. He could feel Vincent's heart thundering against his arm, running out of time. "You're right," Vincent said. "I wasn't hugged much as a child." He'd clearly said it to make Jerome laugh, and Jerome acquiesced to the joke, to their shared absurdity. Jerome petted Vincent's hair, allowing the quiet to warm them.

"People like you usually wash their hands when they have to touch people like me," Vincent said after a while.

"I can only imagine what all that garbage DNA is doing to my stomach," Jerome said. "I hear it's contagious. _Virulent._"

"I'm catching far worse things from you. Drinking, cynicism, perversion..."

"You know sexual orientation is one of the few things they can't select for?" Jerome had read all about it at university, had memorized the list. All the quirks and variations still beyond human control. "A complex interplay of genetic, congenital, environmental, and cultural factors. The risk factor for homosexuality is between five and ten percent for any embryo, no matter how they try to adjust for it."

"Less than ten percent. It's an acceptable risk. Not worth the research." Vincent smirked into Jerome's shoulder.

Jerome knew plenty about acceptable risk. Seven percent risk of addictive behavior; four percent risk of chronic depression; less than one percent combined risk of these factors leading to suicide. Ninety-two-percent odds, give or take, that he would have turned out cheerful and well-adjusted. It was a good thing his parents had never taken up gambling.

At least he'd found some use for the pedigree they'd bought him. Perhaps they'd be proud if he told them.

Vincent's heart rate had slowed to normal. Jerome had never seen him content or still before, but the physical contact seemed to be working wonders. It seemed unfair to throw him out. And right that they should tangle in each other and bind, become continuous.


End file.
